Moved By Her Son’s Suffering, Mother Invents AI-Powered Glove That Predicts Epileptic Seizures

Earlier this week, Ivanka Trump, First Daughter and Advisor to the President of the United States, applauded three woman entrepreneurs at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Hyderabad. One of them was Rajlakshmi Borthakur, a Bengaluru-based businesswoman, who invented a revolutionary epilepsy detection device called T-jay.

Originally from Assam, Borthakur is the inventor of a device called T-Jay which makes use of artificial intelligence to predict epilepsy attacks and allows remote monitoring of patients. T-Jay had even won Borthakur the Innovate for Digital India challenge in 2016. She is currently the CEO and founder of TerraBlue XT, the company that manufactures the device.

Ivanka Trump, who spoke warmly about Borthakur’s journey, said at the GES:

“When her son began having seizures at a young age, she decided to create her own solution to better monitor his health. Now her company, TerraBlue, aims to make specialty healthcare accessible. Rajlakshmi, your courage and determination is truly remarkable.”

“I had a lot of rage in me,” Borthakur had said in an earlier interview. “We had doctors, everything in the world, but why was my son like this? If it was diagnosed earlier, he would probably have been a little better off.”

Borthakur has also launched TerraBlue XT Telemedicine platform, a system through which epileptic patients and their families can avail treatment and counselling through teleconference with prominent neurosurgeons and experts from different parts of the country.

Mostly, doctors rely on an electroencephalogram test (EEG) to diagnose a case of epilepsy. An EEG test detects abnormalities by measuring electrical impulses in the brain. But Borthakur said that this global approach to detection had its limits.

Borthakur said, “The problem is that when epilepsy patients]go for an EEG, they might be feeling quite fine and normal then. These tests can range from a few hours to a few days, depending on the infrastructure of the hospital. This makes it difficult for doctors to give a formal diagnosis on epilepsy.”

“Epileptic patients can’t be under analysis 24×7, and unless the patient is actually experiencing a seizure at the time of the EEG test, the scan results will remain inconclusive for doctors,” she said.

“In my mind, it looked simple: If it is electrical signals or different signals from the body, we have the technology to capture it… So why is nobody doing it? If no one’s doing it, does it mean it’s not possible,” said Borthakur.

Borthakur, an entrepreneur and a mother, who calls herself a “maker” is now looking beyond epilepsy, determined to have the smart glove help monitor other neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s, schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder.